Vanessa was not alone in her late-night solitude.
Callie Shaw was curled in the easy-chair in her family room looking through photo albums.
There were good times, she'd written in her journal. Sometimes I forget them, everything seems so sad nowadays. But Frank and I were happy, and it's important that I remember that.
Frank, she thought with a sigh, tracing her fingers over a picture of the two of them taken the summer prior to the boys' last case. A wonderful, happy summer. The prelude to the worst year of her life. Of all their lives.
Callie…
The girl leaned her head against the easy chair and shut her eyes, fighting the tears.
…I love you baby…
Frank had seemed like the perfect boyfriend; brilliant, sensitive, caring, eager to please, loyal. She'd trusted him completely; she would have given him her life.
He spoke of going to college together, hinted in his shy way that he wanted to stay with me. Too shy to say the words, but I knew how much he loved me; it was amazing to think of, because God I loved him back…
She'd cried for five hours straight the night of his murder, a weeping mess in her mother's arms, inconsolable. He was gone. The love of her life. Not another high school fling—her mother insisted that's all he was—she knew that what they had had been special, had set them apart.
God, I was so happy, she thought, looking at a photo of the group of them, taken at the school's senior picnic. Tony, Biff, Chet, Phil, Frank, me, Vanessa, Joe—
Joe.
Callie sighed and ran her fingers over her boyfriend's brother's face. She'd come to care about him as well; although they did play tug-of-war with Frank, he'd been grudgingly affectionate, and she'd come to view him as her own brother, although she'd never share with him the bond he and Frank had.
Oh Joe, I want so badly to help you, to show you that you can move on. I have. And that doesn't mean that I don't miss him or that I stopped loving him. It's just that I have to live without him. And so do you.
Frank baby? Something bothering you?
Oh, Cal, I messed up, big time…
What do you mean?
This case we're on. I made a mistake. And Joe might pay for it. We've got to get out…
Callie shut the album and drew a pillow to her face to muffle her sobs.
You wanted to save Joe from that madman, she thought, remembering the discussion they'd had about the Reaper's case, their final case. You never thought his worst enemy was himself.
